(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a nonwoven liner material for wiping debris from a recording medium, more particularly to a material for wiping debris from magnetic media that is used in a computer diskette, the computer diskette being made up of a flexible magnetic recording disk contained in an envelope/jacket with a wiping fabric attached therein.
(2) Prior Art
The importance of nonwoven fabrics in computer diskettes has been recognized as being more than a protective fabric to minimize wear or abrasion of the magnetic media. The wiping action of the fabric is important to the function of the floppy disk medium which stores information for use in a computer disk drive. The wiping action of the fabric is also important because debris that may interfere with the information transfer at the read-write head of the computer disk drive, is ideally removed and entrapped by a wiping fabric. Debris originates from many sources such as: the diskette manufacturing process; the envelope itself; the action of the read-write head on the magnetic disk; the external environment; and, the abrasion of the magnetic disk, caused by abrasive fibers used in making nonwoven wiping fabrics.
While there is a demonstrated need for a wiping medium to keep the magnetic disk clean in order to reduce errors in the transmission of information onto or from a magnetic disk, the prior art does not indicate what characteristics are needed in a wiping fabric to perform this task.
The fabric that would perform such a task must be constructed in a manner so that the fibers used in the fabric would not themselves produce deleterious debris in the process of making or using the fabric. In addition, the fibers used therein should not be abrasive to the magnetic disk with which it would come in contact. If debris created by abrasion is not removed or if the wiping fabric abrades the magnetic disk so as to produce foreign particles then these foreign particles will impinge upon, or remove, the surface of the magnetic disk. Such abrasion or removal of the surface causes errors in the information that is being transferred from or onto a magnetic disk, and a misreading of the information takes place.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,668,658 discloses a magnetic record disk cover wherein any porous low friction anti-static material is used to wipe the surface of the magnetic media.
U.S Pat. No. 4,239,828 discloses a self-lubricating magnetic recording diskette, wherein a nonwoven porous tissue-like material is impregnated with a specific additive to wipe and lubricate the surface of the magnetic media to prolong the life of the disk.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,586,606 discloses a layered wiping fabric, having an inner layer of substantially thermoplastic material with an outer layer of textile length fibers.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,610,352 discloses the use of Nylon 6 fibers and the advantages of their use as the inner thermoplastic material in magnetic media wiping.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,591,521 discloses the use of a fusible spunbonded fibrous layer between the nonwoven wiping fabric and the plastic sheet comprising the outer jacket cover, the fibrous layer being present to enhance lamination of the liner to the outer sheet.
The aforementioned prior art fabrics function to remove debris from magnetic media but they do not remove the debris sufficiently so as to eliminate transmission errors from or onto a magnetic disk which are caused by particulate debris. The prior art does not sufficiently eliminate debris because the fabric liners do not have the factors that were found in the present invention.
The present invention has accomplished what the prior art has not by producing a 100% polyester liner that has far superior qualities in removing debris or particles from the surface of recording media than any prior art polyester liner.